Question SSD only for OS

Jul 5, 2022
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I want to buy an SSD to store only the OS (apps on another SSD). I think that best one to buy is Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 but it starts at 250 GB which is too much for just the OS. So I'm thinking maybe Patriot P300 M.2 at 128 GB would be better just for the lower price (50€ vs 18€). I don't have any experience with SSDs.

So what do you think? Any recommendations/ suggestions?
Which one would you buy?

Sorry for bad English
 
I want to buy an SSD to store only the OS (apps on another SSD). I think that best one to buy is Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 but it starts at 250 GB which is too much for just the OS. So I'm thinking maybe Patriot P300 M.2 at 128 GB would be better just for the lower price (50€ vs 18€). I don't have any experience with SSDs.

So what do you think? Any recommendations/ suggestions?
Which one would you buy?

Sorry for bad English
Why limit "for OS only" ??? If you have programs/games installed on another drive, some part of them will also install i OS partition C: and still will not help them. If you don't install most important programs on it you are not going to have all advantages of higher speeds.
 
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Jul 5, 2022
24
2
15
Why limit "for OS only" ??? If you have programs/games installed on another drive, some part of them will also install i OS partition C: and still will not help them. If you don't install most important programs on it you are not going to have all advantages of higher speeds.
I didn't know that. I was going to do this because I heard it has advantages on SSD's life and backup.
 
So what do you advise? An HDD for cold storage and an SSD for OS, programs and files in use?
Yes, that's cheapest way. Now I have only one HDD out of 6 drives, 2xSATA, 3xNVMe (M.2) and this HDD of 2TB just for "cold storage" as you call it. Soon, as chip prices are supposed to go down I'll be switching it for another NVME SSD. and HDD going to external with other 3.5" HDDs for backups.
 
So what do you advise? An HDD for cold storage and an SSD for OS, programs and files in use?

SSD for all purposes unless budget forces you to HDD.

OS and all applications on SSD for sure.

"Personal data" ideally on an SSD, either the same one as OSS/apps or on a separate SSD. Personal data on an HDD only if you cannot afford SSD.

In any case, the OS/applications and personal data should be backed up to some other drive on a regular basis.

So you might have:

Drive 1: OS/apps and all data; an SSD; as large as necessary, with room to grow.
Drive 2: backup of everything on Drive 1; ideally SSD. HDD if you can't afford SSD.

or

Drive 1: OS/apps; an SSD; probably fairly small, possibly 500 GB
Drive 2: all data; ideally an SSD; possibly an HDD if you can't afford SSD
Drive 3: backup of Drive 1 and Drive 2; quite possibly HDD if you cannot afford SSD.

You decide how much capacity you need on the drives. You are the only person who has that knowledge.

Ordinary SATA 2.5 inch SSDs are fine.

M.2 2280 or NVMe drives are optional and may benchmark faster, but you might not notice the difference from ordinary 2.5 inch SATA drives.
 
Nov 18, 2021
17
4
15
I want to buy an SSD to store only the OS (apps on another SSD). I think that best one to buy is Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 but it starts at 250 GB which is too much for just the OS. So I'm thinking maybe Patriot P300 M.2 at 128 GB would be better just for the lower price (50€ vs 18€). I don't have any experience with SSDs.

So what do you think? Any recommendations/ suggestions?
Which one would you buy?

Sorry for bad English
Silicon Power P34A60 256Gb has Silicon Motion 2263XT controller and Intel TLC memory according to that source. And it in your lower budget (on Newegg)
 
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joeldf

Commendable
Oct 11, 2021
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Mostly, personal preference.
Either way works.
Speed is not an issue.

Some people like the simplicity of a single large drive.

Others (like me) prefer multiple drives, to keep things a bit more organized.

This is how I am with multiple drives. I have an SSD for the OS and apps that default to that OS drive (like MS Office) without any other option provided. I set all my user files to save to a secondary HDD. I actually have 2 HDDs for data storage - one is my personal storage, and another for work related files. I also put programs that can be sent to another location on the secondary drive.

Nothing I have really depends on ultra-fast access of an SSD, so I not concerned about that. I don't game, so most apps are load up once, and I'm working on mostly cloud-stored files after that. Those are locally stored on the cache file which is on the SSD or in my 32 GB of ram.

My SSD is a 500 GB WD Black NVMe drive. But even with things spread out over several drives, my SSD is already almost half full. That's because most programs will still cache their temp files to the boot drive. Windows itself puts it's virtual memory pagefile on the SSD too, and that can be several GBs of space used up and constantly swapping in the background.

That's my preference.
 
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